Crash and Burn
by nine miles to go
Summary: iCarly ends. Sam disappears for a year without a trace. When she returns, can she figure out how everything fell apart? Or will the dark past she tried so hard to hide catch up with her first? Seddie.
1. Chapter One

_Crash and Burn_

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly.

* * *

Chapter One

"Sam?"

My heart skipped in my chest, racing out from under my feet. I froze in the classroom. Yes. Yes, of course, that was my name--Sam. How weird it was to hear it again, after I hadn't in so long. I considered this a moment, the monosyllable, the little nothing that was my name. Its power over me. Even after a year had passed without it I still reacted to the sound.

So I looked up. I was Sam, wasn't I?

When I saw him I couldn't place him at first. Brown hair, stern eyes, chiseled jaw. Moderately attractive. Staring at me with a bewildered expression on his face.

Freddie?

"Sam, what are you doing here?" he asked, cocking his head to the side, leaning in closer.

I backed up unconsciously. "I, uh. Freddie," I managed. Could it be him? Could he be so changed in the time I had been gone? I looked down at my feet, breaking eye contact with him. My lip was quivering. I couldn't quite process the image in front of me, of seventeen-year-old Freddie Benson standing in front of me with some Abercrombie top and . . . was that aftershave? The smell was like an effrontery. It was unthinkable, this man-boy in front of me.

The last time I'd seen him he was still wearing those dorky golf shirts and cracking his knuckles anxiously every two seconds. This couldn't be him.

I realized he was still waiting for me to respond. "I'm in English class, same as you," I finally retorted, slipping back into my role--Sam Puckett, twelfth grader, rebel and bully--in mere seconds. It was easy. Easier than I expected, at least, but I suppose I hadn't been planning to act obnoxious when I returned to Ridgeway High. It just sort of happened in that moment. I was defenseless, staring at this new version of Freddie. It was like he'd pulled a gun on me and all I had to protect myself was a carrot stick.

Story of my life.

"But . . . " He looked about as frazzled as I felt. "You weren't here last year."

"No shit."

He scowled. "Excuse me for being concerned," he said defensively.

"Were you now?" I asked sarcastically. "Or did I imagine you ignoring me all of tenth grade?"

"But I didn't," he said, faltering a bit. His cheeks flared and he at once looked indignant. "I didn't . . . ignore you. We just never saw each other. And then you just disappeared junior year, nobody knew what to think--"

"Quite frankly I'm surprised you noticed."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, would you quit the drama queen act for two seconds? I'm just trying to be nice."

I let the words hang in the air for a moment, unsure of how to respond. He took it as a cue to continue. "Sam," he said, his bringing his voice down. The classroom was filling up and people were starting to stare. "You just left. Does Carly even know you're back? We were all worried about you."

I had to look away then, because my eyes started welling up. I didn't want to think about this. I had known that if I came back to Seattle there would be questions, but now that I was facing them I couldn't quell the familiar urge to bite back with some cruel, sniping comment that would drive him away. My mouth tasted sour just thinking of how he'd made me feel so stupid and insignificant a year ago and I wished I could just scrunch him into a little wad and throw him in the trash.

"Yes. Carly knows." I sat down in an empty seat and he was obnoxious enough to take the one next to me.

Even though I couldn't see him it was as if I could feel the hurt I'd caused him like a thickness in the air. He deserved it this time. "So how long have you been back?" Freddie asked.

The bell rang and I crossed my legs, turning my body away from him and toward the front of the room. My breath nearly caught when I spoke again. "Since yesterday."

* * *

I shoveled my way through the crowd after the last bell rang, passing so many familiar faces I'd pushed out of my mind in the past year. Some people stopped a moment, trying to place me, but I kept pushing my way past them all. Before most kids had left their classrooms I had jumped into the passenger's seat of Carly's ice-blue convertible (a little treat she'd gotten for her seventeeth birthday, the one I'd missed when I'd been away), anxious the get the hell away from the school as soon as possible.

It took Carly another five minutes to get to the car, so I burrowed into the seat and made myself inconspicuous in the meantime. I watched the people leave the school through the tinted windows, tried to judge them as they passed. A year really did make a difference in everyone. Gibby had thinned out a bit. Jonah, to my surprise and delight, had broken out in patches of most unsavory zits. That girl Millie from my Spanish class cut her hair extra short and dyed it black, and quiet little Shannon seemed much perkier and pinker than the wallflower she used to be.

So I rationalized that I probably looked different to them, too. I looked at my reflection in Carly's rear-side mirror and wondered at it. Had I changed?

Of course I had changed. I didn't feel like Sam Puckett anymore. I hugged my arms together and closed my eyes, trying to will her back, trying to feel the same way I felt when I liked Sam Puckett. When it wasn't such a terrible thing to wake up and see the walls of my dirty bedroom hear the shrill sound of my mom shrieking at me. When something as simple as a sleepover with Carly or a piece of ham could fix everything.

I opened my eyes to my reflection again. Sam was gone, but I was still here in her shell, wearing her clothes and breathing her air.

Carly was walking toward the car now, and I saw her push the main door to the school open, her hair flying out and framing her face. She was beautiful. I would resent her for it but she was my best friend, and she deserved it anyway. What with her little-miss-perfect in every way. Smart, funny, pretty, dependable. Nice clothes. My exact opposite in every respect. No wonder Fredward had been drooling all over her since the beginning of forever.

Which was what disconcerted me at once with the scene in front of me. Freddy walked out of the school directly behind Carly, and I expected her to turn around and acknowledge him, laugh at some little tidbit or joke that I'd been left out of in the time that I was gone. But she just kept walking. Freddy didn't even look up at her in that pathetic wistful way he used to. Carly headed toward me and Freddy took a left, headed toward his own car.

Ah. So more had changed that I'd thought.

She opened the door and I smirked at her, hiding my unease at once. "You're mad at Fredward!" I said bluntly, kicking my feet up on the dashboard.

Carly rolled her eyes, accustomed to me and my callous ways. "And you still haven't explained where you went last year," she said easily, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the lot.

"Touché," I allowed.

"Feet down."

I removed my Converse from her dashboard. "Looks like the shit hit the fan while I was gone. Did you see Amy Crawl and Jason Pickney with the disgusting PDA? I thought they were Mormon last year, but dude, now I feel like I'm going to get STDs from the water fountains next to their seventh period classes."

"Yeah, well, a lot's changed since you've been gone," Carly sighed as pulled out into the street. Freddie's car passed us in the adjacent lane, but he barely flicked his eyes over to our car before he drove past us.

"Oh, come on, what the hell happened? Freddie's in _love_ with you. You live across the hall from him. What'd you do, shave off his eyebrows or--"

"So completely irrelevant!" Carly interrupted. She wasn't annoyed, but I could tell she was exasperated with me. It was a tone of voice I knew well, and I smiled slightly to myself hearing it. "_You--_you disappeared, Sam! One day you were shoveling ribs and Peppy Cola out of my fridge and the next day you were gone without a trace, your apartment vacated, all traces of you gone." Her eyes were watering, but I knew she was too focused on the road to cry. "And now . . . now you just show up, and God, Sam, I couldn't be any more grateful to have you back in my life again, but give me some sort of explanation. Throw me some rope here. Because I just don't understand."

I could tell she'd been dying to say those words since yesterday, when I showed up on her doorstep with a half-empty suitcase and absolutely no rhyme or reason for my sudden presence in her life. The smile on my lips slid down and I stared out the window vaguely, trying to look unaffected. "Ancient history. Don't feel like talking about it," I said, my throat tight.

"You'll have to eventually," Carly said softly. "Isn't there anyone looking for you? Your mom. Your sister. Is she out of prison?"

I shrugged. "I've pretty much been given free reign of my life, actually. I'm really only going to school for kicks. I don't think anyone's really checking at this point."

"Ha-ha," she deadpanned. Did she not realize I wasn't kidding?

For the rest of the ride we avoided all tense subjects by discussing crud that didn't matter. Carly gave me the lowdown on the classes I'd been haphazardly thrown into at school yesterday, told me about the school play auditions she was freaking over and the "outrageous" summer romance she'd had with some boy in California. It was comforting to hear her again. She was so solid, so unchangeable and familiar. I liked that I could leave for a year without her and let her back into my life so easily I might have only been gone for a day.

We arrived at Carly's flat at the exact moment Freddie did. The elevator ride up was tense--she immediately stalked to the other side of the cramped space, facing away from him, leaving me as the awkward barrier between them. The entire twenty seconds I was torn between Carly's cold ignorance of him and the burning feeling of Freddie's gaze on me, unrelenting and unapologetic. We spilled out of the elevator on the fourth floor without a sound.

It was only as Freddie and Carly started to simultaneously jiggle the keys into their respective locks that I bit my lip, feeling my cheeks burn. I was wrong. Too much had changed, and I felt like it was my fault. Was it my fault the three of us were broken apart? Had I done something to make them hate each other so much?

I blinked the tears away rapidly, straining to remember. I'd been too wrapped up in my personal business, in the hell I'd been living a year ago, to think about Carly and Freddy. But looking back, I supposed it was the beginning of sophomore year, two years ago, when everything changed.

That week we hadn't done a broadcast. It was the first time in the history of iCarly that we hadn't done the show, and nobody had told me why. I remembered sitting alone in the flat, waiting for rehearsal to start. Neither Freddy nor Carly showed up, and I sat there for hours on the beanbag chair, eating out of a big bag of popcorn and trying not to cry. I couldn't do the webcast alone. I was too scared to cross that line.

I remembered feeling betrayed. Heartbroken. iCarly was all I had, all I looked forward to. And the two of them just _took it from me_ that day.

Carly begged me not to ask questions when it ended, so I didn't. It was _her _webshow, after all. To make matters worse Freddy ignored me that whole year and the sting in my heart became an open sore. I still had Carly, but only barely; she was so busy, so driven in her activities that there was barely any time left for me. By the time I'd been forced to leave I didn't feel all that sad about it. I didn't think anyone would miss me.

Out of some false delusion I'd thought I would come home and everything would be alright again. I should have realized I didn't have a home in Seattle waiting for me anymore.

* * *

When Spencer walked in the door that evening he had a bag of groceries and a wide smile on his face. "Hey Carly, hey Sam," he said. "I come bearing ham and chili."

"Oh, thank God," I breathed, grabbing the bag from him and ripping open the plastic coating that separated me from my beloved meat. "I owe you my soul," I said, my mouth grotesquely full of food. I was starving. I realized I really hadn't eaten since yesterday morning, just before I'd run away and hit the road for Seattle again.

"Glad to see her appetite hasn't changed," Carly said wryly.

"Let's hope her taste in television hasn't either, because a new episode of _My Life is Worse than Yours_ is starting in a few minutes," Spencer reminded us.

I perked up. "I haven't seen that in, like, a year--" Oh. Because I really _hadn't _seen it in a year. "Well."

Just then my cell rang. I jumped in alarm, hearing the funeral march ring tone. Specially assigned to the one and only creature Hell rejected and spat back up. My blood froze and the hairs on the back of my neck stiffened in fear. But he was miles away. He couldn't tell where I was. I was invincible here...

Carly snapped in my face, waving my phone in the air. "Sam, pick it up."

"Oh, uh. I don't recognize the caller. Probably selling something."

Carly frowned. "It's a Portland zipcode, same as my aunt's."

"Is it?" I wrenched the phone from her. Of course it was from Portland, what did she take me for? I kept my cool as I put the cell back in my pocket. "Don't know anyone down there."

Spencer and Carly exchanged a look. My cheeks flared in embarrassment, knowing that they knew me well enough to see right through my lies. I felt ungrateful so blatantly decieving them when they'd been nice enough to take me in out of nowhere last night, but I really didn't have a choice. If I answered he might figure out where I was--not that it took a genius. But of course _he--_Seth Greene, I suppose I forgot to mention, whose name is altogether more innocent-sounding than he is--wouldn't want to report my disappearance just yet. Only when it became a problem and a social worker came to "check on me" would he call the police or search for me. After all, without me there the checks still came rolling in.

Seth Greene was the man they put me with in foster care. Originally married to Angela Greene, the saint of a woman who had made me feel safe for all of two months before a car accident killed her.

She died. And from that moment on Seth Greene had made my life a living nightmare.

My phone vibrated and I discretely flipped it open, reading the illuminated text. _Get your ass back here or yul regret it, _it read.

Ah. But I already had so many regrets . . .


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

When I woke up the next morning it occurred to me vaguely that it was a Wednesday. I laid on Carly's couch for a moment, staring absently at the clock, which flashed 5:14am back at me. I stretched and thought of what Wednesday used to mean to me. I supposed it gave me some sense of security, back when iCarly was still running strong. On Wednesdays I knew I had somewhere to be. The webcast trumped all. I liked that responsibility of being Carly's quirky, offbeat sidekick.

Now Wednesday was just like any other day of the week. Boring. Insignificant. Not much was going to change, I feared.

I flicked on the lamp by the couch, knowing I'd never be able to fall back asleep. To my surprise Spencer was halfway down the stairs in his enormous footie pajamas, blinking warily at the light. "Oh. Morning, Sam," he mumbled sleepily. He yawned an obnoxiously loud yawn and stretched his arms up dramatically. I would accuse him of coping with the awkwardness of my return by purposefully acting awkward and showy, but in all fairness Spencer was probably the only one who hadn't acted weirdly around me.

"Why are you up so early?" I asked, kicking the blanket off the couch.

Spencer shrugged. "I had a dream about a spaceman and some tomatoes and it was like, dude, no way I was going to fall back asleep after that craziness, you know?"

I snorted. "Sure." He poured me some cranberry juice and I hopped up to the stool in Carly's kitchen to suck it down. "So tell me why Freddie and Carly are acting like such whiny little brats."

He sighed. "Honestly, Sam? I don't know." He pulled out some eggs from the fridge and my mouth started to water in anticipation. No. Must not be distracted by primal instinct for meat product. I stared him hard in the face and waited for him to elaborate. "I don't know if there was, like, some definitive blow-up or anything. One day he just stopped coming over here."

"Sort of like how iCarly just stopped one day, and nobody told me anything?" I said darkly.

The air was thick for a moment. "I thought you knew why."

"_You_ know?"

Spencer shook his head. "No idea, actually." I could tell he wasn't lying because Carly told me how Spencer starts making motorboat noises with his mouth when he lies. Clearly he was not going to be the Pandora's box of answers I was digging for. I dejectedly took a sip of my cranberry juice, only to have Spencer halt my arm mid-swig. "Mmgff," I protested with a giggle, thinking he was teasing me.

When I saw the scowl on his face it was hard to swallow the juice down. It was rare that I ever saw Spencer with an expression so fierce on his face. "What's that?" he demanded.

The sleeve of Carly's pajama top had rolled up and exposed the bruise on my arm. I pulled the fabric back over it casually and shrugged. "I was wrestling."

"With _what_--a boa constrictor?"

I rolled my eyes. "Some kid bet me I couldn't beat him in a fight, and there was twenty bucks on the line." Unlike Spencer, I lied easily and often. "No worries. I won," I said, flashing a smirk in his direction. It was eerie how easily I could summon the Sam Puckett that no longer existed.

Spencer's eyes still trailed on the bruise, but he nodded and let it go. "You're crazy," he muttered.

"_I'm _crazy? Or did I not see a giant sculpture of a rabbit made entirely of Krispy Kremes and Marmallows when I walked in the door?"

Spencer shuddered. "Its name is Jack. Jack . . . rabbit."

"Ah."

"He gives me nightmares."

"Fascinating," I deadpanned. With a final chug I finished off the cranberry juice and wiped my mouth. "Well, I'm gonna go steal your shower water before Carly gets up."

"Make it quick, the omelettes will be done in a few minutes."

There was nothing in the world better than food that I had no part in preparing. Nearly frothing at the mouth, I managed, "Don't eat them all yourself, fattie!" before I dashed into the bathroom. I didn't want him to see my expression. I didn't want him to think I had something to hide.

The mark, of course, hadn't been from "some kid." It was Seth's work. Admittedly I had been acting a bit childish at the time, but I'd been fed up past my ears with his shit. I leaned on the bathroom sink, staring in the mirror at the bruise his harsh grip had left on my arm, and remembered.

_"Jamie!" _

_Not my name, not my name. Didn't matter. I leaned against the front door of the shabby little house and closed my eyes, willing him to disappear. I shouldn't have come home tonight. Seth was already worked up about his son Jack's failing grade in summer school. All he needed was an outlet. _

_"I hear you out there, Jamie. Ungrateful little brat." The front door whirled open and I dodged it just in time from where I stood outside. In the doorway was a red-faced Seth, his teeth grit and his knuckles clenched. "You were supposed to be home from the Rec Center by three." _

_"I lost track of time," I said, which was the truth. I volunteered over the summer at the little kid's daycare center. Seth only approved because it helped to keep up appearances--and to be honest, sometimes he was fair. He wasn't always like this. It was only once a week or so when he got angry and violent enough to act like there was steam piping out of his nostrils._

_Apparently now was one of those times. He wrenched me into the house by my arm--later resulting in the bruise Spencer would notice two days later--and dragged me toward the kitchen too fast for me to reasonably keep up with him. I tripped along the linoleum behind him. "You know what happens to me if I can't keep tabs on you?" _

_"The social worker takes me away and puts me in someone else's house," I said in a nonchalant voice that did not betray my fear. _

_"She takes you away from us! Your family!" _

_This is where I was sure Seth Greene had gone mad: he constantly referred to me as a member of his "family," calling me Jamie and putting the name "Jamie Greene" on all of my permission slips to the high school in Portland I attended junior year. It was obnoxious. Every kid in the junior class called me "crazy Jamie"--see, I didn't speak to them much, seeing as I hadn't planned on spending much time with them, and when I did speak I tended to make . . . bad impressions. Jack, the aforementioned son who'd lived with Seth all his life, explained to me that Jamie was his older sister's name, but she'd run away when she'd turned eighteen two years ago. I didn't blame her. I was just mad that I was taking her place. _

_To some (very small, miniscule) degree, though, I had a soft spot for Seth Greene. He was mad and deranged to truly think I was his lost daughter, but I thought he might actually care for me, beneath his uncontrollable rage and clear insanity. And I was used to taking care of people without the soundest of minds. Before they'd taken my mother away I'd lived with her for fifteen years just fine. _

_I missed her now more than ever. She was crazy, but when she wasn't she and I got along great. Anything I needed that she couldn't give me I could get from Carly or the aunt that wasn't in the slammer. My life was just fine the way it was. So why did they take me away from my mother?_

_"Do you realize where they'd put you?" He was so close to my face he was spitting in it. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, rattling my vision a moment. "With strangers, Jamie. People who don't know you like we do. People who wouldn't forgive your problems!" _

_Ah. My "problems." I wasn't sure what they were, but they must have been bad for him to treat me this way, like a timebomb about to explode without warning. _

_"Are you even listening to me?!" he cried. _

_I backed away from him until I hit the counter. "Yes." It was the safest answer I knew. _

_"So why were you two hours late?" he asked evenly, suddenly quiet. _

_I bit the inside of my lip. The truth was never good enough. "We were finger-painting," I said weakly, showing him my green and purple hands. "I forgot--"_

_He scoffed incredulously. "You forgot," he seethed. "That's it, Jamie? You just . . . forgot?!" He swatted my palms away and shoved me roughly into the counter. "So this family means nothing to you." _

_"Apparently," I sniped before I could stop myself. Damn it, Sam Puckett. _

_That's when I knew I'd crossed the line. Another shove toward the wall--the doorknob left a gross bruise on my hip, but at least that was concealable. Then he pushed me down into the basement, his version of time-out. I stumbled and fell down the stairs, which were thankfully carpeted but did nothing to ease the discomfort of the situation. I smacked up my cheek on the wall and my mouth bled, but aside from that and a few new bruises I'd certainly feel in the morning, I was relatively easy off this time. Most nights Seth was worse than this. _

_I sighed and looked around the basement. It wasn't like it was a morbid, terrible place. I actually preferred the basement because at least when he put me in there I knew I was safe for the rest of the night. There was light down here and some books I'd snuck in. It was like my safeground. _

_Except that night something was most deliciously different about the basement: Seth forgot to lock the basement door. _

_I wouldn't have even bothered to check if I hadn't had to pee so badly. Usually if I rattled on the doorknob for awhile, Jack (who was thirteen and not stupid enough to get caught in the act) would sneak me out for a minute. This time I jiggled it and it opened wide without a sound. _

_Freedom. I stood there for a moment in shock, then ran toward the spare bedroom where I usually slept and grabbed my duffel, shoving in whatever clothes I saw. It was madness. It was bliss. My heart was beating so fast in my head I thought I might explode at the very idea of getting out of there, the sheer bliss of it. Momentarily I considered grabbing the book I'd been assigned to read over the summer, but then I had to stifle a laugh. _

_I wasn't coming back. Ever. _

_I pocketed my cell phone and seventy dollars I'd saved and ran. Took a bus, took a taxi. Found Carly. _

_Free_.

I couldn't have him coming back for me. I wouldn't be able to bear it.

In the two seconds it took for me to come back to my senses I shook my hands off the countertop and twisted the shower head on, listening to the spray of it and letting it drown out my thoughts. I didn't want to worry about this. Since birth I'd just made thoughtless decisions dealt with the consequences if and when they began, and this time would be no different.

The steam filled my nostrils and I sighed, exhaling all my fears as simply as that.

* * *

Carly was already at the table eating eggs by the time I got out of the shower. I sat down to join her, stabbing at the eggs and joyfully shoving the food into my mouth.

After Carly swallowed she mentioned, "You talked in your sleep last night."

I raised my eyebrows at Carly. "I slept on the couch. How could you have heard?"

She shrugged. "Late night Toaster Strudel snackage. You know someone named Peter?"

I smirked. Peter Crock, a boy in from Portland I'd dated for about a month, was a junkie senior who wanted nothing more than to get a piece of me. Even if he was a total creeper and totally the wrong person to lose my virginity to, he had a car and he'd skip classes with me. He showed me the ropes of hacking into the school's records and altering grades and attendance. So all in all, he was disgusting, but very useful.

"Yeah," I said vaguely. Honestly, though, I couldn't remember the dream at all. I very rarely remembered dreams when I woke up.

"So?"

"Kid from school," I said, shoving another forkful of eggs in my mouth.

"Not from _our_ school," Carly pointed out.

"Mmm," I said in assent. Ew. I really didn't want to think about his sloppy, dog-slobbery kisses and awkward attempts at seducing me while I was eating these glorious (and altogether much more appealing) eggs.

Carly slammed her fork down on her plate and the sharp _cling!_ rang throughout the room. I straightened up in surprise and she rounded on me furiously. "Sam, I'm your _best friend_. Could you just cut this crap and tell me what happened to you?"

"No!" I exclaimed before I could think. "I mean...yes! I just--I mean--" My stomach churned in the familiar way it did when I knew I'd been cornered. I felt like I might throw up. My voice sounded whiny and high as I croaked out the words, "Why can't we just pretend nothing ever happened? It's so stupid. I'm _back_ now, nothing's different. Just . . . can't we please make it that way?"

"No! We can't!" Carly exclaimed, leaping to her feet from the table. Her eyes were tearing up again and it made me want to pull my hair out, I hated so much to upset her. "You've always just wanted things to be so _easy_, Sam, but they're not! Do you know what kind of thoughts were running through my head while you were gone? No one even knew if you were alive! Everybody was asking me what happened and I had no idea. I kept thinking about horrible things happening to you, I kept thinking you were mad at me, that I'd let you down somehow--"

"But you _did!_" I shrieked with inhuman emotion. I stumbled backward from the countertop, breathless from my unexpected outburst. The room began to spin and I sank onto the couch behind me, my arms shaking with . . . something. It wasn't anger. No, I loved Carly, she was my best friend. I could never be angry with her.

. . . She could have been there. Best friends were supposed to _know _when terrible things were happening in your life. Couldn't she see my eyes had been screaming last year? Couldn't she see how I withdrew, how I barely came around to her place anymore, how I slowly whittled into the woodwork like an old toy she'd pushed aside?

And for God's sake, couldn't she see I didn't want to talk about it now?

These thoughts were wrong. I flinched even thinking them. Carly couldn't have known because I'd made absolutely sure she'd never find out.

"What do you mean?" she shot back. There was only a slight trace of her previous venom. She seemed to dissolve at my reaction.

"I just . . . I didn't mean to say that. I don't know."

Her eyes narrowed. "No, Sam. Tell me the truth."

The words spilled out of me like marbles on my tongue. "What about iCarly?"

She looked away when she responded defensively, "What about it?"

"Don't treat me like I don't matter, Carly, I'm _sick of it. _The two of you just _decided_ one day that it was done! I sat there and waited for the two of you for hours and hours and no one ever came! Carly, what happened?" I was almost crying, but I couldn't bring myself to in front of her, not after I hadn't seen her in so long. I felt like I couldn't trust her. I felt like I didn't know her anymore, even though I could look at her and know what color the straightening hair gel she used was and what year she'd bought those adidas socks in without thinking about it. "That webshow was all I had left in high school. And you just . . . took it from me. Didn't even bother explaining. Like I didn't _matter--_!"

"It was _complicated_, Sam!" she snapped.

"So I guess I'm not the only one keeping secrets." With that I turned my back on her, blindly grabbed my school bag, and headed for the door. The bus wouldn't come for another fifteen minutes but I didn't care. I'd walk the two miles to school before I'd spend an entire bus ride with her, feeling terrible about the things I'd said and humiliated by how riled up I'd gotten in front of her.

I hadn't planned on running into Fredward.

"Morning, Sam--" He paused. "What's wrong?"

I blew past him.

"Sam . . ." He caught up to me and grabbed my arm. I flinched--he'd latched right onto the bruise--and pulled away. He looked at me, confusion evident on his face. He hadn't known. It wasn't his fault. But I couldn't swallow the fury rising up like bile in my throat.

"Just leave me alone, Freddie. You're good at that, remember?"


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

"Samantha."

Miss Briggs? I swung around in surprise, coming face to face in the hallway with none other than the woman who almost single-handedly had me held back in the eighth grade. Only the horror of having to see my face in the halls of Ridgeway Middle School for another 180 days was enough to convince her to pass me.

I cleared my throat. "Miss Briggs," I replied, straightening my posture and trying to look as if I hadn't just been heading for the back exit of the school.

"You're back, I see." Her eyebrows were raised in an unnaturally high position. "I had the impression you'd left Seattle."

"Ah, well." I grinned cheekily at her. "Plans change. Sorry to disappoint."

She was acting unexpectedly civil toward me, although I'm not sure if the lower half of her body had so much as twitched since she began to speak. "I trust you're not in any of my classes."

"I think you'd have seen me in one of them by now," I said, in a not-so-polite tone of voice.

She pursed her lips in an almost invisibly thin line of disapproval. "Well, with you it's impossible to know. What with your tendency to never show up to class," she said in her high-strung manner.

"Look, I got somewhere to be . . . " I muttered. It was lunchtime. I'd been planning on skipping out and leaving for the rest of the day, but now that she was standing right here I really didn't have the option anymore. Plus I didn't feel like enduring any more shit right now. "So let's catch up later, alright?"

"Samantha, where were you last year?"

I walked away as if I hadn't heard her. No, wait. Not toward the lunchroom. I'd see Carly or Freddy or even Gibby and I'd have to hightail it right out. Abruptly I changed my course, headed for the main entrance of the school.

"Samantha."

_Go away. I hate you. _I thought of all people Miss Briggs would be the least likely to pester me about this. God knows she relished every second of my sudden disappearance from her stupid, insignificant life. It's not like she even cared. She had no right to be asking me, like she had some sort of hand in what went on in my life. _Where were you when they took away my mom? Where were you when they stuck me in the middle of nowhere with a complete fucking lunatic? _

Miss Briggs was just like the rest of the adults in my life. Useless and disappointing.

"I'm _talking to you,_ young lady!" I heard her heels click-clacking menacingly behind me in some awkward attempt to chase me down. Ha. I'd like to see her try.

Just in case she caught up I broke out into a run, slamming my hands onto the main doors and swinging myself out into the gust of light rain and cool air. I cleared the entrance and headed for the park across the street. She wouldn't follow me that far. I looked back to make sure, and I was almost disappointed that I had been right. Maybe it would have been nice to think she'd cared about what happened to me, even if I knew it would never be true.

I sat myself down on a park bench near a clump of trees when I started to hear the all-too-familiar voices behind me.

". . . any more than _you_ do?" Carly hissed.

In all honesty I was about to clear my throat obnoxiously so she would be alerted to my eavesdropping. But when I heard the voice that responded to hers I couldn't help but slunk into the seat and listen.

"She's _your_ best friend," Freddy shot back, his voice raised and altogether much less discrete than Carly was being. "I figured if anyone would know where she'd been, it'd be you."

The blood drained from my face. Oh, my God. Legit? Could I _really_ not get away from all this crap? I didn't run trek the four hundred miles back up to Seattle to hear them bicker like idiots, especially over this. I shut my eyes tight, trying to will them away. A breeze passed and I imagined that it would change them. I wanted everything to be the same. It was selfish of me. I wanted back iCarly, I wanted back my friends, I wanted back the usual feeling of security I had when I walked into Carly's flat. Not that strange exposed feeling I had in it now . . . it was different, keeping secrets. I hated it. But it was the only way to help things return to normal.

Carly huffed. "Well, I don't know. And don't you make that face at me!" she snapped. "It's not like I haven't tried to find out--oh, the nerve of you, Freddie Benson. You haven't spoken to me in a year, you snubbed Sam for even longer, and _now _you decide to care?"

"Hey!" Freddie sounded furious. "You know it's not like that at _all._ You _know--_"

"All too well," Carly scoffed.

Whoa. Carly . . . hated him.

"It's easy for you to be self-righteous," Freddie muttered. "You just think you're right about everything, don't you, Carly?" The words were low and sharp. I realized his voice had deepened considerably in the past year. I couldn't decide what was stronger--my strange, unexplainable attraction to it or my distress at its unfamiliarity. Evidence that so much had changed without me here. I tried to focus on the conversation, but it was difficult. It didn't make any sense--I couldn't follow the sequence of their accusations. It was then that I realized that they had started keeping secrets from me that went beyond iCarly's premature death and my year-long absence.

"You know what, let's just . . . not even talk about this right now," Carly said slowly.

Freddie laughed bitterly. "Oh, so you're going to be the 'mature one' and stop this conversation before it escalates, are you?" he mocked her. "Go ahead, Carly. Have at it. Say what you want."

"There's no point."

"Don't stand there like you don't even give a shit about what happened," Freddie said vehemently.

"I _don't. _I've moved on."

"But you're still furious with me."

"And I have every right to be, don't I?"

"Oh, please. It couldn't have been so bad for you."

"I _humiliated _myself. I thought you felt the same way. You made me think that--"

I froze on the bench. Felt . . . the same way? What the hell was Carly talking about? My brain couldn't quite process what she was saying. It was a disconnect.

"Carly. I liked you for years, and you never . . . " Freddie's voice broke. "You _never_ once even considered me. I waited for you like some pathetic loser. You thought you were humiliated? Think of how I felt every day!" Freddie cried in frustration. "I couldn't take it anymore. It was clearly never going to happen. So I . . . I moved on."

"Yeah," Carly said angrily. "The second I reciprocated, you mean. Then suddenly you just weren't interested anymore."

The wind blew an unusually strong gust, and I flinched when a leaf flew into my face. The rain picked up but I barely even noticed. This couldn't be happening. I knew a lot had changed, but I never anticipated _this. _My heart was racing, pounding in my ears, still not loud enough to drown out their argument. Freddie and Carly . . . Carly and Freddie . . . no. How could she decide to like him, after all of his annoying stalker tendencies? How could she like him after she had spent years without so much batting an eyelid in his direction?

How could she like him when he had betrayed me sophomore year, refusing to speak to me and making me feel like an insignificant nobody?

"I thought you noticed that year," Freddie said defensively. "When I didn't wait for you at your locker or walk you to the bus stop. I thought you understood that I had moved on."

"But I hadn't," Carly protested weakly.

After another brief silence, Freddie said, "Look. I wasn't going to sit and wait for you forever, and I'm sorry it didn't work out."

Carly sighed. "When I kissed you, I--"

I couldn't help it. Some animal noise gurgled from my throat and I had to choke back my revulsion, gagging at the very idea. "No, no, _no!_" I cried, leaping from the bench that had previously hidden me from their sightline. I rounded on them madly. "What the _hell _isthis shit you're pulling on me? Is this some sort of joke?"

For a moment nobody wore identical expressions of immediate shock at my interruption. I could see the guilt in their eyes, the dirty feeling of being caught. I'd felt it myself plenty of times. But this was different. This was disgusting. My face contorted in disbelief and fury. _They didn't even tell me. They don't even care about me enough to tell me this happened. _My eyes filled with tears--the two of them blurred in front of me, but not before I could see their surprise melt away into anger and impatience.

"Sam--" Carly said, exasperated.

"Don't!" I screamed. "I don't want to hear it, just shut _up_."

"I was going to tell you--"

"Bullshit! How could you keep something like this from me?"

"Gee Sam, I don't know. I can't _imagine_ keeping secrets from you," she drawled, her voice dripping cruelly with sarcasm.

I faltered. I had kept secrets from her. Lots of them.

"You can't expect me to just pour my heart out to you when you wouldn't so much as leave me a phone number to reach you with," said Carly, her lower lip quivering as she spoke.

It was like I'd been slapped in the face. "Carly, I'm not . . . it's not like that." I shook my head passionately. "I'm not keeping secrets from you. It's not so . . . trivial, it's not so _stupid_ as having a crush on a _boy._"

Her entire face reddened like the inside of a steak. "Well if _that's_ what you think," she said shakily, grabbing her schoolbag from the ground and hoisting it on her shoulder in a clipped series of motion.

"Carly . . . " I wasn't going to apologize. But I wanted to say something before she left the park hating me.

I couldn't find the words fast enough. She was gone.

Freddie cleared his throat and I jumped a little in alarm. I'd forgotten in the overwhelming silence that he was there. Quickly I swiped at a stray tear--it wouldn't have mattered anyway. It was raining so hard that he probably wouldn't have been able to see.

"Sam," he started, but I cut him off.

"I'm really not in the mood, Benson."

"I'm sorry," he said before I could stop him a second time. He took my silence as permission to continue. "I'm sorry . . . about sophomore year, I mean. It was wrong of me."

There were so many times I'd envisioned this conversation in my head. Someday, I'd fantasized, he would have the audacity to apologize. And then I'd slam it right in his face. Give him a taste of his own medicine. I'd stare him down and demand answers. _I thought we were friends, at least. But you left me in the lurch. Mr. I'm-so-popular-I-can't-STAND-it, Mr. Ivy League Bound. Too good for plain old Sam Puckett, right? And now you regret it. Ha! As if I could ever be friends with you, you pathetic, sniveling loser. As if I'd ever want to be your friend after what you did. You can just jump the lanes of the highway for all I care about you, Fredward Benson. _

I heard the words in my head. I opened my mouth to say them, but nothing came out but a choked sob. My body was shaking, trying to stop the tears, but I couldn't control myself. "It's all wrong, everyone's different," I blubbered. "What happened? What _happened_?" I couldn't look at him. I knew I looked like a moron. He was probably edging away from me right now, before he was seen with the crazy overemotional freak that I had become.

Instead I felt his surprisingly firm arms around my shoulders. I sobbed into his chest, feeling both self-conscious and relieved. I felt so safe--I was aware, in the back of my mind, how wrong it was to feel safe in the arms of none other than Fredward, but in that instant it didn't matter. I needed his warmth, his strength, his reassuring presence. He stood there in the park, patient as ever, waiting for me.

The bell to the school rang in the distance. Lunch period was over. Still he didn't move away, holding me as I continued to cry. "It's alright," he murmured. "You'll be okay."

I shut my eyes. When he said those words I could almost believe them. Finally, for the first time since I'd arrived, someone wasn't demanding where I'd been or what I'd done. I didn't want to talk. I just wanted . . . normalcy. No--more than that. Security. I wanted a place that felt like a home should feel, somewhere I felt protected.

I never thought I'd find it in the arms of my worst enemy.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

I didn't come back to school that day. It didn't matter--senior year was complete bullshit and everybody knew it. What was I possibly going to accomplish in the next year that hadn't already been shoved down my throat in the previous seventeen years of my life? Besides, I just couldn't face everyone. I missed the old Ridgeway High too much . . . ironic, considering the scariest change of all was the one in my own heart.

He'd waited with me outside the school at that park until my tears had subsided, and we sat back down on the bench in silence for a little while. His presence beside me was solid and tangible as a brick wall. We sat so close that our arms were touching, and I could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt. It seemed so simple, just sitting there together on the bench, but it felt like my heart was squeezing in my chest, trying to decide how it felt. I didn't _like_ Freddie in that way. I knew that, and I'd known it since the fifth grade. So it must have been some other feeling that made my heart start pounding, made me suddenly nervous that at any moment I could say something that would make him go away.

I didn't want him to leave. I was sick of people leaving.

"I'm sorry," I said after awhile. "I didn't mean to . . . " I shuddered. "Throw myself on you like that."

His smile was small and gentle. "Sam, _I'm_ the one who owes you an apology."

It occured to me that maybe he was doing this out of guilt or pity. My whole life I had been so defensive of people ever inflicting that sort of emotion on me--I never wanted anyone to be nice because they felt bad for me, the idea of it was revolting. But my head was so muddled with thoughts of him that I really didn't care what it was that made him stay here with me.

So I didn't chew him out for it or anything.

"Sophomore year . . ."

Oh. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be reminded of that now.

"I was a jerk, Sam. There's no reason for what I did."

I shook my head. "There was. I was awful to you."

He looked down at his shoes. "That's not . . . a reason." He cleared his throat, not quite meeting my eye. "You know, we really did look for you after you left. For awhile there Carly and I actually spoke to each other. She was . . . devastated." Softening his voice, he admitted, "I was upset, too."

I shouldn't have felt so guilty. It wasn't my fault, after all. How could a sixteen-year-old girl fend off the State of Washington? But when the decision had been made, I hadn't even fought them. Maybe that's why I felt so terrible. Because for the first time in my life I just stood back and watched them take my mother and didn't utter a word of protest. I packed my bag--that's a lie, it had been packed for ages. A part of me had always known that my life with Carly and Freddie was too good to last. It had already disintegrated bit by bit before I'd been forced to leave.

"If I could've stayed," I started, not knowing what else to say.

"Why not?" Freddie asked earnestly. It wasn't an accusation. It was concern, and I didn't know how to react. I slouched, my legs fidgeting awkwardly on the bench.

"Because . . . some shit happened." I swallowed, feeling the bitter taste of last year in my mouth. "My mom, she--well. There was some freak-out at work, and it hadn't been the first time. I have no idea what happened, but I can imagine." I couldn't look at him. I felt like it was someone else's mouth the words were coming out of, because I'd never actually spoken them before. When kids asked me where I was from in Portland I'd never elaborated beyond the one-word reply of "Seattle." Now the words were tumbling out of me, out of my control. "She wouldn't hurt anyone," I stressed. "She never had. It's just that she scared some people with her . . . behavior, and after too many times they had her institutionalized." I shuddered. "And there was no place for me to go."

"What about Carly?" Freddie asked. He fiddled with his coat sleeve, saying shyly, "What about me? We would've let you--"

"I didn't think. And I didn't want anybody to know."

"Sam . . . we're your best friends. Why would we ever judge you for something like that?"

My eyes welled up again. "Because I'm always imposing on everyone! I've been a burden since the day I met Carly. I'm always mooching food and rides and inviting myself over and messing up everyone's lives. I couldn't do it. I just _couldn't_. And high school . . . I didn't care, I figured it would be over in two years anyway, so what did it matter? But I didn't know how awful it would be, how long it would be, and I . . . "

"Sam?" he prompted me, worried at my sudden silence. "You know we would never--"

"I shouldn't be here," I whispered. "I ran away."

"Ran away?" Freddie was silent a moment, trying to process the words. "Wait. From what?" When I didn't answer right away, he continued, "God, Sam, either one of us would have let you stay. Without question."

"How could I have known that?" I was blubbering again. "I thought you hated me. You wouldn't even look at me, Freddie! You can barely even look at me now!"

"Because I was falling in love with you, Sam!"

Just then a heavy gust of wind that seemed strong enough to blow me away roared past us. I barely even noticed. The blood in my veins was racing, pulsing in my ears. I felt some unrecognizable emotion swelling in my chest, too large to contain. I thought I might burst, sitting there on the bench beside him. My face boiled despite the cold and my hands trembled with emotion. Shakily I rose to my feet.

"What?"

Freddie's expression was one of horror. "I . . . shit. Wait. Sam--"

"You're _not funny_, Freddie. Oh my _God. _I would--I would expect this from Peter Crock, but not from _you_--"

"Peter . . . what? Sam. Let me explain."

"No!" I yelled. "I just--I trusted you, and you just threw it all back in my face! Damn it, Freddie." I yanked my backpack up from the ground and stalked away. I heard his footsteps padding behind me, following me out of the park. I rounded on him, tears streaming from my face uncontrollably. "Leave me alone!"

"Sam--"

"Did you not hear me?" I was shrieking, the words ripping from my throat, but I was barely audible over the wind. "I don't need you! I don't need anyone! Just _leave_ _me_ _alone_!" 

_

* * *

_

My phone was ringing. _Dun dun dun dunnnnnnn._ I knew it was him, I knew he was furious with me for leaving. Eventually the ringtone became a dull background noise, another lulling of the night. I leaned back on the grass, tilting my head to look up at the sky. It had stopped raining a few hours ago and I was laying out on the empty football field, staring up at the stars. The grass was wet and had numbed my entire backside. It felt nice.

Or I tried to convince myself it did. I knew I couldn't go to Carly's, and like hell was I headed for Freddy's after his shit. So I sat there and listened to the phone ring over and over. Laughing as the Beethoven's fifth dinged and donged. Halted, bitter laughter that gurgled deep in my throat.

I couldn't think of what could possibly happen now. It had always seemed like I'd had options. Even when I was stuck with Seth, I knew I could escape. I knew I could cut class and live my own life then. There was at least some freedom--but now I was facing a dead end, a complete stop. There was no place to go. I didn't even know where my mother was, my sister was still in the slammer, and the only friends I had were completely out of commission. If I turned to an adult I'd get reported to some sort of social services, who would poke their moronic heads in on my life like self-sacrificing vigilantes when they were really just making everything ten times worse.

My stomach growled. That was the primary issue, I thought. Food. I had spent most of my seventy dollars on bus and taxi fares working my way back up to Seattle, and I had about ten bucks. Plus I had no idea how long I'd need it to last . . . and I was too lazy to get up from the field and a grocery store, anyway.

I closed my eyes, hoping for sleep that I knew wouldn't come. Instead I stewed in my thoughts. Freddie had liked Carly. Carly had liked Freddie. Gross as it seemed . . . where did it go wrong? My eyes flew open again and I sat up, wrapping my arms around my knees. Really, it didn't add up. Their whole relationship couldn't have possibly just evaporated, turned into something so sour, when it was clear that they both had feelings for each other. The ideal situation. Stupid Fredward had been waiting his whole life for Carly to show as much as an inkling of interest for him.

"Ucch," I muttered. I didn't want to think about it. The muddled inconsistencies of the story, the holes in it that made no sense. It had been whirling in my head ceaselessly all day long. I knew that the truth of the matter was somehow connected to everything that was now trapped between the three of us. iCarly's demise, Freddie and Carly on the outs, everybody acting like I was an alien instead of Sam Puckett.

Because I wasn't. Not really. I was so mad at them for changing, so indignant that they didn't keep their whole world untouched and perfect for my return. But Sam Puckett hadn't come back. Some twist of Jamie Greene's memory and me had come home instead. I should have been sorry for my hypocrisy, but I wasn't. Of course I'd changed. My entire life had been turned upside down. And they were freaking out over--what, a stupid crush gone wrong? It clenched my fists together, still wrapped around my shaky knees. They didn't know what problems were. They had no _idea_. Wrapped up in their own lives like sniveling little teenagers when I'd dealt with shit that they couldn't even fathom.

The anger dissipated as quickly as it came. Because I hadn't told them--that was why they didn't know. That was why they were caught up in their own melodrama. I had lied so many times that I didn't even deserve their sympathy.

Besides, they didn't deserve to have all my problems unloaded on them. They were already unhappy. It wasn't my place to ditch them for a year and make matters even worse.

The phone rang again and in a moment of rash, thoughtless passion, I wrenched it open and screamed, "YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME, ASSHOLE--"

"Sam?"

The little voice disarmed me at once, and I deflated onto the grass. "Jack?"

"Sam," he breathed in relief. "Sam, I've been trying to reach you all night."

"From the . . . house phone," I realized stupidly. I had set the ringtone thinking that I'd only ever get calls from Seth. "Why didn't you call me from--?"

"Dad took it away." His voice was trembling.

"You sound scared. What's happened?" I still thought of him as a kid brother even if I truly had no place in his life. He had always been quiet and shy and doing poorly in school, and he depended on me for the time I was there. I felt a pang of guilt, knowing that I'd abandoned him.

"Sam, he's coming after you."

I laughed. "Don't worry about it, there's no way he'll find me out--"

"No," he interrupted with a rare burst of passion. "There's a GPS on your phone."

It felt like the skin had leapt off my bones. "What?" I stammered, my heart flying up to my tongue, thickening my words with disbelief. Every muscle in my body tensed. How could I be such a moron? Seth gave the phone to me. He had no reason to be nice. All he'd wanted was to keep tabs on me, control me like he'd been doing for the past year. He didn't want to make the same mistake twice--not like he had with the daughter I'd replaced. No, Seth Greene wasn't going to be fooled.

He'd outsmarted me. But maybe . . . maybe it wasn't too late.

"Did you hear me? Sammy?"

"Thank you, Jack." The words were lodged in my throat like popcorn kernels. "I won't forget this." I hung up and turned the phone off.

For a moment I sat, trying to think this out rationally. My first instinct was to throw the phone away. But even if I did he would come too close. There was no way to get the phone out of Seattle and get myself back in a timely manner.

If he had a GPS then he already knew. He knew where I was at this exact moment, he knew where I'd been all of today and yesterday.

I felt like I might throw up.

Instead I stood up and tore for the road, feeling my lungs rip with the unfamiliar feeling of breathlessness. I chucked the cell phone into the road and watched with a satisfying sort of madness as headlights whirred by, each car crushing the phone to bits a bit more. It wasn't enough. He'd still follow me here.

I ran for the woods behind the school. I had to be somewhere nobody would find me, and I could think of more than a few perfect places.

* * *

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